Casing leather

[fredk]

On 8/7/2019 at 3:43 PM, dougfergy said:

The last leather I purchased (I only buy one piece, a double shoulder or something similar, at a time, use it and run out and go back to Tandy and buy more) was a better class of leather from Tandy called Craftsman grade Oak Leaf, in 8 or 9 oz.  It was much lighter colored than anything I've bought in the past, very smooth and consistent in thickness.  Seems pretty stiff too, tight grain I guess. 

I picked up on this. Tandy leather can be very inconsistent, even hides in the same 'batch' can be very different

Whenever you buy some leather and you think you might want to tool it, cut off a couple of those sticky-out bits, cut them down and see how each of those bits does with different wettings. It will give you some indication how that hide will do

[Northmount]

Should also note that seasonal differences in temperature and humidity will affect how long cased leather takes to dry to the optimal tooling state.  So times you figure out for summer may be substantially different in the winter.

Tom

[fredk]

This is true, even for day to day. Yesterday I cased some leather, it took almost all day until it was ready, today it took less than a couple of hours, due to weather changes - yesterday was very wet and cool-ish, today is very warm and dry

[dougfergy]

Yes, the more I try, the more I learn that I have so much more to learn!  Something like that.  I wrongly assumed that all veg tan would act the same and that is obviously not the case.